Amazon apparently isn’t willing to let Apple and Google hog the market for voice-enabled personal assistants. Unnamed sources have told TechCrunch that Amazon has purchased Evi, a Siri-like voice assistant application that had been developed by True Knowledge, “a British startup with a natural language search engine developed in university labs.” Although TechCrunch has been unable to get official confirmation from Amazon, the publication’s sources say that Amazon paid around $26 million to acquire the app. Given Amazon’s investment in both Evi and voice recognition software company Ivona, TechCrunch speculates that the company may be inching close to developing its own smartphone to compliment its Kindle Fire line of tablets.
Amazon reportedly buys Evi, a Siri-like voice assistant app
Published Apr 17th, 2013 9:30PM EDT
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Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.
